NEW YORK CITY -- A new analysis of global temperatures released by NASA Jan. 15 says the global warming trend is continuing. With one exception in 1998, NASA says, "the nine warmest years in the 132-year record all have occurred since 2000, with 2010 and 2005 ranking as the hottest years on record."

NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York released the new analysis based on satellite observations, meteorological stations and Antarctic research station observations. The record "is one of several global temperature analyses," the NASA release says, "along with those produced by the Met Office Hadley Centre in the United Kingdom and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's National Climatic Data Center in Asheville, N.C. These three primary records use slightly different methods, but overall, their trends show close agreement."

The new analysis gives a nod to global warming skeptics -- saying that weather patterns always cause temperature variations from year to year -- but says that if the current emission of greenhouse gases remains the same, each decade in the future will be warmer than the one before it. Greenhouse gases, including carbon dioxide generated by burning fossil fuels, allow sunlight to penetrate the atmosphere but trap its heat and do not allow it to escape back into space. NASA says the carbon dioxide level in the atmosphere was 280 parts per million in 1880 and exceeds 390 ppm now. The average global temperature since 1880 has risen 1.4 degrees Fahrenheit, the analysis says.

"One more year of numbers isn't in itself significant," Goddard climatologist Gavin Schmidt said in a NASA press release. "What matters is this decade is warmer than the last decade, and that decade was warmer than the decade before. The planet is warming. The reason it's warming is because we are pumping increasing amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere."

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has already reported that 2012 was the warmest summer ever for the continental United States. Goddard Director Dr. James Hansen agreed it is part of a trend. "The climate dice are now loaded," Hansen said in a statement. "Some seasons still will be cooler than the long-term average, but the perceptive person should notice that the frequency of unusually warm extremes is increasing. It is the extremes that have the most impact on people and other life on the planet."